The Smiles on Moss Hollow Campers' Faces Are as Bright as the Sun

Early yesterday morning, five buses lined up outside the Model Cities Senior Wellness Center in Northeast Washington. Four of them -- yellow school buses from the Talbert Bus Co. -- were for children headed to summer camp. The fifth -- a big motor coach -- wasn't. It was for senior citizens taking a day trip to Atlantic City.

I daydreamed for a while what might happen if the buses' respective passengers somehow got mixed up. I envisioned children hanging off casino slot machines and giggling whenever they heard someone say "craps." I imagined grown-ups standing uncomprehendingly in the middle of the woods, their hands clutching jugs full of quarters.

I am happy to report that the proper people boarded the proper buses.

At a folding table set up on the sidewalk, staffers from Camp Moss Hollow checked names off of lists. Parents and guardians filled out last-minute paperwork. Meanwhile, sleeping bags, suitcases and backpacks were hoisted aboard buses.

I didn't spot any whimpering kids lingering in their parent's embrace.

"No 'Goodbye,' no kiss, no nothing," a mother said in mock outrage as her child ran onto one of the buses without so much as a backward glance. I think I detected a spring in her step as she walked back to her car.

(Parents, take the newspaper away from your children now. They must not discover our dirty little secret: that we look forward to them being away at camp almost as much as they do.)

Some of the campers heading to Moss Hollow -- a Fauquier County summer camp for at-risk kids from the Washington area -- were old hands, greeting counselors like long-lost family. Others were first-timers, scanning their bus to decide where to plop down, wondering who might become a friend during their week away from home.

Cindi Dorsey, a member of the camp's program staff, helped some of the younger girls find the right bus. There's a bus for girls 7 to 10, another for girls 11 to 14, one for the younger boys and another for the older boys.

"It's kind of sad when they move up to the other bus," Cindi said. "We've had them since they were 7." Another rite of passage achieved.

As the buses filled, fingers curled over window edges and faces were poised at open windows.

"Whose head is that?" Hope Asterilla, the camp's director, good-naturedly yelled at one bus. "Get down! Be safe!"

"Y'all gonna get in trouble," shouted a mother who was waiting to watch the buses depart. "She's gonna drop you off at y'all's parents." Fingers and faces disappeared from the windows.

Four drivers turned four keys, and four engines leapt to life. Four yellow doors swung shut. Four buses pulled away.

"Bye!" came a happy shout from inside one. "See you in two years!"

Send a Kid to Camp

Two years? Not quite. The campers who left yesterday morning will return Friday night. But for some, those five days will leave quite an impression. They might spend the next year looking forward to their next week at the Hollow.

We still need donations to reach this summer's goal of $500,000. You can help. For decades, readers of The Washington Post have supported the camping program of Family Matters, the nonprofit charity that runs Camp Moss Hollow. To make a tax-deductible gift, send a check or money order, payable to "Send a Kid to Camp," to P.O. Box 96237, Washington, D.C. 20090-6237. Or contribute online by going to http://www.washingtonpost.com/camp and clicking on the donation link. To use MasterCard or Visa by phone, call 202-334-5100 and follow the instructions on our taped message.

Paint It Black

Among the first things I did after we moved into our house five years ago was paint the rusty railing that leads to our front door. I can report that a John Kelly paint job lasts five years. It's time to paint again.

This time, I put my daughters to work scraping and abrading with a wire brush. I threw some tarps under the railing and taped off the bricks of our (white) house. Then I spray-painted on a coat of primer and several coats of black Rust-Oleum.

What I seemed to have forgotten in the past five years is that spray paint is a fickle mistress. You may think you're painting the black railing that leads up to your house when in fact you are painting everything around you. Aerosolized paint wafts everywhere, a fact I was not reminded of until I pulled back the drop cloth. It had covered half the concrete walk leading up to our door and, therefore, half the walk was now a dingy, sticky gray. I picked up my roll of masking tape to discover a neat white circle on the concrete underneath. Next to it was the shape of a wire brush.

The effect -- circle, lines -- looked like a Man Ray photograph or something from Peru's Nazca Plain.

My e-mail: kellyj@washpost.com.